Film Review
In 2010, director René Féret achieved widespread acclaim
for his biographical drama,
Nannerl, la soeur de Mozart, an
insightful and moving account of the frustrated life of the composer
W.A. Mozart's sister. His follow-up feature is a similarly
eye-catching period piece, offering a moody tale of incest and deceit
set in the rarefied atmosphere of the high society of the Belle
Époque, circa 1900. In his sixteenth full-length film,
Féret deals with a subject close to his heart - family intrigue
- and takes as his inspiration a bestselling novel of the 1950s by
Gladys Huntington. When it first went into print in 1956,
Madame Solario attracted
considerable attention, partly because it was published anonymously (it
wasn't until the 1980s that the author's identity was disclosed), but
mainly because of its scandalous content. Huntington was 69 when
she wrote the book, which is believed to be autobiographical, and
committed suicide three years after its publication. By the time
Féret came to make his film, Huntington and her infamous novel
had been all but forgotten.
In this, his most ambitious film to date, René Féret does
a fine job of recreating the world that Huntington describes so vividly
in her novel, a hermetically sealed world of privilege and complacency,
governed by rigid social codes which suffocate all true human feeling
and allow vice and corruption to fester like a gangrenous pus beneath
the thin polished veneer of respectability. It is a milieu that
will be instantly recognisable to any devotee of the English writer
E.M. Forster - there is that unmistakable twang of autumnal mustiness,
suggestive of a stale social stratum that has outlived its stay and is
soon to be washed away by the cleansing tides of time.
Féret's film may have been made on a far more modest budget, but
it does bear a passing resemblance to the lavish Merchant-Ivory
adaptations of Forster's novels, as it should given that it deals with
similar themes in an identical setting.
Partly by design, partly by accident,
Madame
Solario has a worrying sense of artificiality about it, which
effectively captures the absurd superficiality of the starched milieu
it depicts, one in which surface appearances count for everything
whilst honest emotions are violently suppressed. Perhaps
Féret goes a little too far in his use of distancing techniques
- the Bressonian style of acting makes it hard for us to engage with
any of the characters, most of whom come across as dull and shallow,
and the dialogue (clumsily overladen with dry exposition in places)
becomes jarring after a while as it is constantly delivered in a flat,
emotionless fashion. If Féret is indeed attempting to
imitate Robert Bresson, he misses the point somewhat and fails to find
a way to elicit much of an emotional response from his audience.
The one fatal error that Féret makes is to cast his daughter
Marie in the central role, the eponymous heroine with a decidely
troubled past. Attractive as she is, Marie Féret has
neither the charisma nor the acting skill to render her complex
character credible or interesting. The qualities that made her so
suitable for the part of Mozart's sister in her father's previous film
(her innocence and self-effacing charm) make her totally the wrong
choice for the role of Madame Solario, an unscrupulous adventuress
involved in an incestuous relationship with her brother.
Fortunately, the two other two principal roles are far better cast:
whilst neither Cyril Descours nor Salomé Stévenin evoke
much sympathy, they have at least a spark of vitality and are able to
render their characters totally believable (almost to the point of
nausea). The same cannot be said of most of the
supporting cast, who look like a job lot from a waxworks factory (an impression that is
reinforced by the colourless dialogue they are given).
Given the obvious shortcomings on both the writing and acting fronts,
it is surprising that the film has any appeal at all.
Madame Solario may be flawed but
there is something about it that makes it strangely compelling.
Its main virtue is Benjamín Echazarreta's sumptuous photography,
which not only lends the film an exquisite visual lustre but also
powerfully evokes the era and the setting of the story. As
ineffably gorgeous as the Lake Como location is, the stunning vistas
suggestive of an island paradise that could not be further from the
travails of the early 20th century, there is an all-pervasive sense of
confinement and brooding menace. Right from the outset, you can't
help feeling that this perfect world of elegant frocks and even more
elegant manners is a total sham, a façade through which a
flotilla of bulldozers will smash at any moment. As soon as the
nature of Madame Solario's relationship with her brother becomes
apparent, we know that it is only a question of time before the temple
walls come crashing down, exposing the prim social merry-go-round for
what it is - a hideous spectacle of lies and artifice.
If it had been better cast and if a little more care had
been lavished on its script,
Madame
Solario could easily have been René Féret's most
impressive film to date. As it is, the film struggles to maintain
our interest and is only partially redeemed by its three saving graces:
its hard-to-resist visual allure; its daring but delicate handling of a
problematic (i.e. incestuous) relationship; and its intense evocation
of a world that has long since passed away. It is not an easy
film to be moved by, but it is crafted with immense style and it does
leave a lasting impression.
© James Travers 2012
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